Adding hurdles to Louis Raffin’s plate so late in his career has not slowed down the versatile speedy senior on Chesterton’s loaded boys track and field team

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

A first-year hurdler as a senior, Louis Raffin already has broken the 40-second milestone, a remarkable achievement for someone so new to the event.
Raffin ran a 39.81 Saturday to finish second at the West Lafayette Relays, the same day that the 4X400 relay for which he runs the anchor broke the school record set eight days earlier by running a 3:17.74 for first place.
Although this technically is Raffin’s first year as a hurdler, in another sense he has been running them in his mind since he was a boy, the 12th of 13 children in a family noted for exceptional academic and athletic performance. Many siblings ran the hurdles, including former school record-holder, Matt. Freshman Stephen also runs the hurdles.
“I remember as a little kid I used to play like I was running track in the back yard. I used to set up little chairs and I’d think I was hurdling,” Louis said.
A boy’s imagination has no trouble transforming chairs into hurdles and a back yard into a packed Olympic Stadium. He always finished first in those races, and he came close to doing that for real on Saturday at the West Lafayette Relays, where he was beaten only by Merrillville’s Keon Strong (39.08), who in last week’s rankings was 10th in the state. Last week’s rankings had Nate Vaughan ranked third (37.94), Cal Wisniewski 12th (39.35), and Raffin 25th, but that was before he lowered his time Saturday. He fell out of the rankings updated Friday but the time he ran Saturday would have put him 22nd if it had happened a day earlier.
Vaughan’s school record in the 300 hurdles effectively pushes the school record out of Raffin’s range. not within Raffin’s record. The Raffin family record, however, is more realistic. Matt ran a 39.49 in 2010, setting a school record that has since been broken by Kieran Barnewall multiple times. Vaughan broke Barnewall’s record and then his own this season.
Having three elite runners as versatile as Raffin and his two classmates who join him on the 4X400 relay, Vaughan and Wisniewski, creates a situation where the possible combinations of how to use them, while considered a good problem to have, also can be stressful for a coach and the athletes.
Obviously, all three plus freshman Ben Phillips will run the 4X400 in the postseason. That’s a given. They twice have broken the school record this season, and the 3:17.86 they ran Saturday is the fastest in the state so far this season.
Beyond the 4X400, where they all will be used gets a little murky.
Raffin, who appears faster than a year ago, ran a 49.23 in the open 400 at the 2025 regional meet, good for third and a spot in the state field.
At the moment, Raffin shapes up as an even better open 400 runner than 300 hurdles runner, but it’s not as simple as that because of what order the events come in a meet. The 4X100 relay, the 400 and the 300 hurdles are back-to-back-to-back events, in that order.
Raffin runs a leg of the 4x100 relay, which also has a chance of placing at state.
Decisions. Decisions. As soon as Raffin showed how naturally he took to hurdles, the possibilities of how to use him snowballed.
“It’s kind of getting complicated,” Raffin said earlier this season. “I’m not going to lie, it does make it hard as far as making decisions on what to run, but we’ll figure it out as the meets go on. I think it’s either going to be 4x1 and 300 hurdles or the open 400. The 4x4 is a guarantee.”
Since the grueling 400 is set between the other two events, running it counts him out for the two events that sandwich it, so there is a good chance he’ll bypass what is at least at the moment is his best individual event.
“The 300 hurdles is doable with the 4x1. If I didn’t do the open 4, I’d be able to do the 4x1 and 300 hurdles,” Raffin said. “It’s going to be a difficult decision for sure. There are a lot of factors. I think we can place near the top in the 4X1 at state, too, not just the 4X4.”
It’s likely he hasn’t hit his season peak yet as a hurdler, so it will be interesting to see how low he goes there. He also runs the 110 hurdles, the second event in meets.
“I like the hurdles,” he said. “It’s something different.”
His speed and long legs made him a natural for the two events, and his speed and 6-foot-2 frame make him a natural at wide receiver as well.
As a senior, Raffin led Chesterton in receptions (40), receiving yards (571) and touchdown receptions (four). He was the one player in Chesterton’s lineup who had the speed to match up with Merrillville and it was in a 42-7 loss to the Pirates that he had the longest gain of the season when he caught a short pass and burned down the right sideline for a 62-yard score.
Raffin will play in football for Hillsdale College, an NCAA Division II school in southern Michigan that granted him a partial athletic scholarship. He said he might also run track on a walk-on basis.
For now, he’s finishing a sterling Chesterton athletic career competing for an elite team that competes today at home in a dual meet vs. Crown Point.